Tuesday, November 16, 2010

In favor of paper ballots,recounts. Internet Voting is 'an affront to democracy'

Bo Lipari on "Pulling the Lever for Paper"..Virginia needs paper ballots by 2012 to avoid fiasco: "It's been a few years since Fairfax County got through an entire election cycle without a piece of voting equipment breaking down, a handful of votes vaporizing or an election result being delayed."..Internet voting is "an affront to democracy..It does not fulfill the requirement of one person, one vote and a guarantee of a secret ballot..it excludes people who are intimidated by it."~Stratford,Canada.."The Great Cyberheist": our security on the web is an illusion...

AK: Sitkan sees no wrongdoing in Fairbanks precinct*(ballot jammed in Accuvote)http://kcaw.org/modules/local_news/index.php?op=centerBlock&ID=1012A poll watcher for the Democratic Party in Fairbanks says he too was concerned by a malfunctioning voting machine in his precinct on election day, but saw no wrongdoing....Kreiss-Tomkins arrived at the Tanana Valley Fairgrounds precinct a little after 7 AM to find poll workers struggling with an Accuvote machine that wasn’t feeding properly. They had opened the machine up, and were extracting a jammed ballot.

AK: Murkowski passes Miller in vote counthttp://www.adn.com/2010/11/15/1555926/murkowski-passes-miller-in-vote.htmlMiller spokesman Randy DeSoto said he still thinks the court challenge could get enough votes thrown out for Miller to win....Miller was hoping to get a boost from absentee ballots. But Monday was the last big count of absentees and there turned out to be more write-ins than Miller votes.

CO: HD-61 hand counts happening todayhttp://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/143718 Election officials from Glenwood Springs to Gunnison are sorting through undervoted ballots in the House District 61 race (hand count of undervotes for write-ins only)

CT: 86 Voting Precincts to Be Auditedhttp://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/ctnj.php/archives/entry/86_voting_precincts_to_be_audited/ http://tinyurl.com/395egpl In addition to the dozen Bridgeport voting precincts, which were allowed to stay open until 10 p.m. based on a judge’s order, 74 voting precincts throughout the state will be audited before Nov. 22.

CT: Post-Election Audits Announcedhttp://wtic.cbslocal.com/2010/11/15/post-election-audits-announced/Connecticut’s tight race for governor, which came under close scrutiny after Bridgeport poll workers ran out of ballots on Election Day, has been selected as one of several state races that will undergo a post-election audit...Bysiewicz said she supports proposed legislation that would require every municipality to order at least enough ballots for every registered voter...Lesley Mara, the deputy secretary of the state, said she’s not aware of any other state with optical scan voting machines that requires cities and towns to order a certain percentage of ballots.

Instead, they closely resembled the numbers posted 10 days earlier - before the completion of exhausting recounts and the surprise discovery of 500 extra uncounted ballots a week after Election Day

MI: Election results still uncertified, Genesee County clerk says absentee ballot problem could prevent recount in district court electionhttp://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2010/11/county_election.htmlCounty election officials have come close but haven't been able to match the number of paper absentee ballots they have from Flint with the ballots other city election records show should have been cast in the election.

The Emmer campaign Tuesday released letters to the counties confirming the Friday deadline for most information, although some may not be ready by then.

NC: New Hanover Co. Commissioners vote to keep Airlie Gardens open to the public, election chairman addresses Election Day 2010 http://www.wwaytv3.com/new_hanover_co_commissioners_vote_keep_airlie_gardens_open_public_election_chairman_addresses_election_day_2010/11/2010 http://tinyurl.com/3x6ytg6 The board admitted Monday it sent the wrong ballots to two precints and not enough ballots to a third...."It's been said that some people feel we don't take things seriously," said New Hanover County Board of Elections Director Bonnie Williams. "You lose sleep over it, you stop eating over it and you take it pretty seriously."

NY: PULLING THE LEVER FOR PAPERhttp://www.bolipari.com/boblog/2010/11/pulling-the-lever-for-paper/...Perhaps it's because New York isn't yet used to having anactual paper record of votes, so we don't yet understand the value of arecount. When outcomes are uncertain or disputed, recounting paper ballotsis the best way there is to find out who really won an election.

When they tried to read votes recorded on the memory sticks, Shafran said, election workers received files that said they weren’t readable.

NY: Democrats may seek hand count in Thompson-Grisanti race (Erie County)http://www.buffalonews.com/city/politics/article254889.eceShafran said when the memory sticks for the new electronic machines were pulled Monday, technicians received a computer message that the files "were not readable."...A source today said the "chain of custody" has also may have been breached when data from the machines was sent from Erie County to the machine manufacturer in an attempt to try to resolve the computer problem uncovered yesterday.

However, someone noticed an oversight an uncounted tally sheet for precinct 54.Elections Administrator Roger Ortiz was notified and according to sources the discrepancy was found.A retabulation then showed Wood was ahead by 5 votes.

VA: Making every vote counthttp://www.fairfaxtimes.com/cms/story.php?id=2521 It's been a few years since Fairfax County got through an entire election cycle without a piece of voting equipment breaking down, a handful of votes vaporizing or an election result being delayed....Yes, processing 100,000 votes on paper ballots is more expensive than the electronic alternative, but it pales in comparison to having a three-day wait to determine the next Sully District supervisor or Mason District School Board member.

VA: LTE - Election Day glitch was inexcusable* (E-pollbooks failure)http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/letters/wb/266885The recent election in Montgomery County garnered attention because electronic poll books failed to work in a third of the precincts....Before the election, the decision was made to provide paper backup copies of the electronic poll books in some, but not all, of the 21 precincts....If it was suspected that there might be problems at some of the precincts, why was a paper backup not provided at all precincts?

The Great Cyberheisthttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/magazine/14Hacker-t.html"This is the he single largest and most complex identity-theft case evercharged in this country, but this story of a brilliant hacker who workedwith and betrayed the Secret Service is chilling because it happened,and it demonstrates that our security on the web is an illusion. This isa fascinating, almost unbelievable story."

Clues Suggest Stuxnet Virus Was Built for Subtle Nuclear Sabotagehttp://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/11/stuxnet-clues/ Stuxnet was designed to hide itself from detection so that even if administrators at a targeted facility noticed that something in the facility’s process had changed, they wouldn’t be able to see Stuxnet on their system intercepting and altering commands

EAC seeks public comments on proposed changes to its regulations pertaining to the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA). Comments are due by Nov 23, 2010http://www.eac.gov/national_voter_registration_act/comment_on_proposed_changes_to_nvra_regulations_.aspx http://tinyurl.com/23uwac5

GRITtv: Chloe Angyal: Voting Rights and Responsibilities (great video)http://grittv.blip.tv/file/4375227/ Where I come from, voting is compulsory. If you don’t show up on Election Day, you’re fined $20. I’m from Australia, where voting, like paying taxes, is a part of being an adult and being a citizen. I’m also a citizen of the United States, where voting is not compulsory, and where voter turn-out, with a few exceptions, gets thinner with every election cycle.

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Articles and commentary included in "Voting News" do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors of Voting News, or its allied organizations. Articles are selected for inclusion to inform subscribers' ability to draw their own conclusions based on noteworthy and credible news, research, legislation, and debate bearing on the integrity of elections.